Gérôme Fabry was a direct descendant of the head guide who led Sir Walter Raleigh on his fruitless search for El Dorado. Indeed, his father was of 100%-pure Native American blood. That he would even look at the woman who was to become Gérôme's mother was what used to be known as "the shame of the family". She was a rocket scientist who had only come to French Guiana to further her career before (hopefully) moving on to the United Enterprises Organisation's launch site in Kazakhstan. But then came all those caipirinhas…

She woke up the next afternoon, one strange man in her bed and another in her womb. If it hadn't been for her upbringing in a Catholic convent in Dijon, she might not have had any qualms about aborting the foetus. She was a physicist after all. But this was in the days before the Fourth World War, one of the bigger fallouts of which was that religion was finally banned. As a Cradle Catholic and however reluctantly, she gave birth.

She did so at a time which was (for her) the most inopportune. The first manned mission to Mars was only hours away from its successful completion when she felt the first contraction. She immediately went into denial but shortly after there was no denying anything. Rather than be taken to hospital and miss the most important event in space exploration since the first moon landing in 1969, however, she gave birth on the floor of mission control. As the command module touched down on the surface of the Red Planet, Gérôme touched down on the grey linoleum floor.

As a result, Gérôme achieved his “fifteen minutes of fame” in the first few days of his life. He became known as “the Mars Baby”. This was an epithet which would swing back like a boomerang once more in his life. When studying for a degree in Business Administration, he was featured in an episode of the holographic documentary series “Whatever Happened to...?” The title of the show: “Whatever Happened to the Mars Baby?” Talk about kudos!